The Chopin community erupted into debate on October 21 after the announcement of the final rankings for the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition. Classical music enthusiasts worldwide, who had spent five years anticipating this moment after the last competition, were met with the final results and a set of special awards that left many with mixed feelings. Amidst public speculation, the competition released the detailed scores for each participant on October 29, finally offering a window into the jurors’ decisions.
To understand the ranking of each musician, it’s crucial to understand how the scoring system works first. Introduced in the 2015 edition of the competition, it requires jurors to assign a rating from 0 to 25 for each musician in every round, with the lowest and highest scores adjusted to align with the competitor's average. These scores are then weighted to determine qualification for the final round (10% first round + 20% second round + 70% third round) and the final rankings (10% first round + 20% second round + 35% each for third and final round). With this system, musicians are not solely judged based on a brilliant performance in any specific round, but on consistent performances throughout the competition.
Analyzing the finalists’ placement in each round reveals two distinct groups: those who consistently ranked in the top ten, and those who were initially overlooked but later gained momentum. This is clearest in the first round, where only six of the eleven finalists ranked in the top ten. Pianist and competitor Tianyou Li, for instance, ranked dead last among the finalists at thirty-seventh, just four spots away from elimination. However, this quickly changed in round two, as ten of the eleven finalists distinguished themselves in top spots. However, the jurors’ opinions in the final round were sharply divided. While many jurors awarded scores of 24 or 25, Garrick Ohlsson and Yulianna Avdeeva gave nearly everyone a sub-20 score. Ultimately, among the most anticipated competitors, Kevin Chen scored the highest in the final round, losing the competition overall by just 0.28 to Eric Liu’s higher cumulative score.
This year’s jury included three past Chopin Competition winners: Garrick Ohlsson (VIII), Yulianna Avdeeva (XVI), and Đặng Thái Sơn (X), alongside six other past Chopin Competition award winners and three honorable mentions. Divisions in taste are a perennial feature of this competition, with some favouring emotional musicality and original interpretations, and others prioritizing technical clarity and execution. For example, three of the five Polish jurors gave near-perfect marks for Tianyao Lyu, a child prodigy and student of fellow Polish juror Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń. Her scores are a recognition of her tonal clarity and discipline, the core musical values and traditions of the modern Polish Chopin School, where Katarzyna is a core member. In contrast, previous winners Avdeeva and Ohlsson gave Lyu a low score of 17, signalling a preference for more emotionally daring interpretations over her circumspect style.
Though not unexpected, many jurors had their own students in the competition, spurring public discussion. Jurors Đặng Thái Sơn, Garrick Ohlsson, and K. Popowa-Zydrón each had at least five students in the first round and at least one in the finals. While jurors cannot vote for their own students, conspiracy theories have emerged about vote-trading for each other's protégés, citing the Polish jurors' unified high scores for Tianyao Lyu. However, scrutinising published scores reveals no clear correlation to support this. Intriguingly, some jurors consistently underscored other jurors' students. Đặng Thái Sơn, for example, typically scored them about a point below their average.
While this evidence neither proves nor disproves any theories, it highlights a crucial factor in the scoring dynamic. Although juror scores are anonymous during the competition, they eventually become public. In this tightly-linked community, where paths constantly cross, it is nearly impossible for less established jurors to be entirely unbiased toward the students or opinions of senior colleagues. Though this may not arise from direct pressure or deference, subtle forces of professional etiquette can still create slight biases for or against certain musicians, indirectly shaping the final results.